Sambo’s expensive taste

Nigerians are conversant with the idea of contract variations because hardly is there any contract worth the piece of paper on which its agreement is written that does not suffer the plague. And they know what in our parlance that means! But the case of the vice president’s residence that has generated brouhaha is one variation too many. There is bound to be problem. That is exactly what is happening in this instance.

Here was a contract that was awarded in 2009 at a cost of N7billion. Three years down the line, we were suddenly told that it would cost N9billion more! This must be a record variation even by the standards of our many sickening public contracts. The additional N9billion is needed to provide furniture, fencing, two additional protocol guest houses, a banquet hall and other security gadgets.

According to Adamu Ismail, executive secretary of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), who had earlier defended the new estimate before the Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT), these items were not captured in the original scope of the work.

This is hard to believe. How, for instance, could a vice president’s residence be contemplated without basic things like fencing and furniture, not to talk of security gadgets, banquet hall and protocol guest houses? If all of these were omitted originally as we are now being told, then this calls to question the professional competence of those who awarded the initial contract. Or, could it be a reflection of the relatively moderate taste of the then occupant of the office? This is where the news report that the contract had to be reviewed to meet the taste of Vice President Namadi Sambo would seem to be more credible.

The original contract was awarded when the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan, was vice president. At that time, the incumbent vice president was governor of Kaduna State. But, according to the report, Vice President Sambo is uncomfortable with the structure because of what it calls his ‘culture and religion’. And that is why Nigeria must part with more than N9billion more for the residence? We were even told that the amount was reviewed down to N6billion by the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP). This would bring the project cost to N13billion. Even Senator Smart Adeyemi, the committee’s chairman, was said to have favoured N10billion for the project. None of these costs reflects the current economic situation in the country.

We are not opposed to our vice president having a befitting residence. But we detest everything that would make public office an excessive cost centre and a burden to the taxpayer. We already have too much of such overheads and there is no point aggravating the situation. What we should be thinking of now is how to reduce them. If we must redesign a house now simply to reflect the religion of the incumbent, what happens in the future when someone of another religious faith occupies the office? So, we have to start knocking down walls and awarding fresh contracts to accommodate the taste of that person. While this may be good for public officials who award the contracts, it is bad for the nation’s economy. Vice President Sambo or any incumbent of that office should live in a decent residence; but that should not tear the pockets of Nigerians who are to bear the brunt of the costs.

The fact is that our leaders are too detached from the citizenry, that is why they oftentimes cannot draw the line between what is decent and what is not. All the figures being bandied for the vice president’s residence are too obscene for the kind of picture that the government is painting of our economy. They are simply provocative, insensitive and indefensible.